Note: This takes place after the Hokuten knights have attacked Fort Zeakden. Wiegraf's speech (the part of it given, anyway) is actually from Shakespeare's Henry V, which inspired this in the first place. Watching that movie always makes me think of Wiegraf, for some reason...I think it's the hair. Seriously. Kenneth Branagh looks like Wiegraf. But I'm rambling...so here's the fic already.
We Band of Brothers a Final Fantasy Tactics vignette by Iris Amergin
It seemed we were all disheartened that day; I know I certainly was. And why not? What did we have left? Our own problems were ripping us apart internally, and a Hokuten force was approaching that outnumbered us five to one. As if we needed help to destroy ourselves. I woke that morning cursing the name of Beoulve, the family that would finish us off, and the name of Gustav Margueriff, who had ensured that the Beoulves would have an easy time doing so.
Gustav. When he fell, he took a good portion of our soldiers with him, and caused damage to the command structure from which we would never recover. He couldn't fall on his own; no, he had to take us all down with him, the bastard. May he rot in all the hells there ever were. I trusted him, fought alongside him at several actions, covered his back and nearly got myself killed doing so, because I thought the Death Corps wouldn't make it without him. I was right about that much, anyway. He damned us all, and those of us who stayed loyal to the cause will never forgive him for it.
Still, nothing seemed to faze Wiegraf. I don't know how he holds it all together; the man is amazing. He stood up before us that morning and spoke. We were discouraged, despairing, cursing the day we had chosen to join the Knights of Death in the first place. We knew we were going to die. None of us believed we'd listen to anything he could say.
But listen we did.
I don't remember every word he spoke; my memory isn't up to the task. And yet I will carry the memory of that speech with me to the grave. Not the exact words, but the way he delivered them; the fiery determination, the utter conviction behind them, the call to arms that spoke to our souls and reminded us of why we had become Knights of Death in the first place. A few of us cried. All of us cheered, overcome by the almost intoxicating feeling of being part of something bigger, something more vast than you or I or anyone. Something that mattered. For even, as he said, if every one of our number should fall to the Hokuten, they can never erase what we have done. Our death by their swords is a small but defiant shout to nobles throughout Ivalice--see what you have driven us to!
"We would not die in that man's company that fears his fellowship to die with us!" Wiegraf had said. "But we in it shall be remembered; we few, we happy few, we band of brothers; for he today that sheds his blood with me shall be my brother!"
And he was right. It doesn't matter if Gustav left and took half his troops with him. We're better off without those who would put themselves before our cause. Our numbers may be small; so greater the glory. We will take on any number of Hokuten to buy our freedom, even if that freedom is only in our own deaths.
I did not die at Fort Zeakden that day, to my shame. I was left for dead by the Hokuten, and I least of all anticipated my survival. But when their knights had withdrawn, I saw those who remained dead on the battlefield. The numbers--far exceeding our own--that had fallen to us, and those Death Corps knights who fell as we made our last stand for our freedom.
My brothers.